Flashes of Life
by Vivere Sine Timore
Summary: They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. Mal used to doubt it, but now he's not so sure. T for language and implied character death.


He gasps for air as he lays in the middle of the street. Everything is so cold. He lifts a trembling hand and stares in wonder at the crimson blood staining it. He lowers his hand to his side agian, back into the expanding pool of blood. His blood. Oh, God. Is he dying?

He is one again, taking his very first steps by himself. His mother is in front of him, beckoning to him. He knows he father is behind him, ready to catch him if he falls. He is surprised he can remember this far back. He couldn't remember this before.

She is suddenly by his side, pressing down on the wound. He moans in pain and tried to make her stop. Why can't she see that it hurts?

"Stay with me, Mal," she whispers in his ear. "Stay with me."

He is six, standing on the elementary school playground. He is waiting for his dad to pick him up from the first day of school. He has to tell him all about his new teacher, Ms. Higgins. He has to tell him all about his first day as a first grader. He looks around. Other than the fifth graders who were supposed to make sure all the younger kids got picked up, he is alone.

His eyelids flutter, and he hears someone scream his name.

"No! Keep fighting!"

"What the hell were you thinking?" His dad roars. "Fighting that kid? He was four times bigger than you!" He hangs his head and silently glowers up at his father. He is thirteen, his freshmen year of high school has just begun.

"It was justified," he mutters.

"Oh really?" His dad crosses his arms. "And how was it justified?"

"I don't know, it just was!"

He forces his eyes open again. It feels like they've been weight down with a hundred sand bags. Her worried face swims before his eyes, and he tried to open his mouth to talk.

"Shhhh," she soothes, pressing a few fingers to his lips. "Don't talk. Just focus on staying awake. You can do this."

He knows he can't do this. He stands in the doorway of the station, dressed in a stiff uniform. His gun is jabbing into his hip at an awkward angle, and he's pretty sure his taser is holstered wrong. He doesn't know what the hell he was thinking, becoming a police officer. There's no way he's going to survive the first week.

"Just hang on for a few more minutes." He manages to nod weakly. She puts more pressure on the wound with one hand and takes his in the other. He focuses on that small spot of warmth where her hand meets his. He holds on to it with all he has, hoping that it will be enough to save him.

She's absolutely gorgeous, he thinks to himself. He laughs at himself. There's a psychotic serial killer on the loose, a dead girl at their feet, and he can only think about how beautiful she is. On top of that, he literally met her a second ago.

Within seconds, a million memories of her pass before his eyes. The first time her called her by just her first name, watching her being kidnapped by the Russian man working with the Connoisseur, being hunted in the woods, helping her through her break up with Shawn. There are so many memories of her that it's almost impossible to separate memory from present. She is all he can see, and all he wants to see.

"Mal, no! Don't close your eyes!" Her panicked voice seems to come from far away, as if he's listening to her from underwater.

And then he's on a rooftop, bound to a chair and gagged, Javier Garza pressing a gun to his head. His father arrives and makes a deal with Garza, and his blood boils, partially because he's a damn good cop now, and he can't believe what his father is doing.

"Come on, Mal, Stay with me!"

His father asks to say a few words to him, and the gag is removed. He yells at his father, berates him for making a deal with a criminal, although a voice in his mind reminds him that his father is a criminal too. He realizes that his father is trying to negotiate to give him a chance to live, and he yells at him more.

"Mal!" She screams, tears streaking down her face.

It's as if he's seeing a split screen. Two different scenes, two different times, possibly even two different lifetimes. There's no way all of this could have happened in one life time. Two people staring down at him with such care in their eyes. Two different faces dancing in his fading vision. Two different pairs of lips speaking the same words as his world turns to silent darkness.

"I love you."

* * *

><p><em>Alright, so this was supposed to be a drabble, but it kind of ended up as a small one-shot. Oh, well. I think it turned out pretty well. Please review and tell me if you agree or disagree!<em>


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